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Minus Story Moebius
Syndrome Local
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After listening
to the new album "Moebius Syndrome" by Minus Story, I was
left scratching my head. The first question that presented itself to
me was “who are these guys and how the hell did this come out of
Boonville, Missouri??” I hate myself for even thinking such thought’s
because that’s the same way anything good from the Midwest is treated
on the coasts. Me wondering how something so good came out of such a
tiny town is the same thing on a smaller scale. I hate me. Perhaps a
little introduction is necessary here. Minus Story is a music collective
from Missouri, they just released a new album on Mercrider Records from
Louisville, KY (this is Mercrider’s first release, MER001), and
they recorded a smooth, dark, flowing album in the basement and backyard
shed of their drummer, Nick Christus. DIY seldom sounds so good –
this band has come as a real pleasant surprise. The artwork is a tasteful
collage of birds flying out of an old phonograph. Actually, the songs
on "Moebius Syndrome" also kind of feel like collages. Dissonant
guitar, bass, and drums that don’t work together in a traditional
way, but still have a weird cohesion – like a photo negative. The
sound of Minus Story is lulling, dark, slippery, distant, murky, and
somewhat dischordant. I could continue with the adjectives, but nothing
will quite describe the sound they’ve crafted on this album. The
vocals are haunting and sound like they’re coming at you through
an aluminum tunnel. The instruments sound like they’re operating
in their own little universes. The music is not harrowing, it is not
sedating, it sits in some kind of no-man’s land in between. There’s
a real intensity to it, but it seems to be coming from a long way off.
Solitaire Champion
is my favorite track on the album. It’s a very fractured song that
has a great sense of vitality to it. When Jordan Geiger starts chanting
“I flow through the levee” on Lula – that’s
one of the high points of the album for me. I have no idea what he’s
talking about, but it’s powerful nonetheless. There really aren’t
any weak tracks on the album, but most of the songs don’t vary
a lot from one to the next. Sometimes that creates cohesion and a sort
of ‘groove’ for the album, sometimes it just makes all the
songs sound the same. I can’t really say which way I lean on this
album. Minus Story has
crafted a great album in their own backyard. “Moebius Syndrome”
is a dense, satisfying album that takes more than one listen to really
grab onto. Songs like Solitaire Champion, Lula, School, and Under the
Knife really stand out and I hope to hear more of their like in the
future. Minus Story is a real treasure from some neighbors I didn’t
know we had, check them out. PS- They’ll be opening for Appleseed Cast and Mates of State on June 20, so be sure to get there on time to see them.
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